The number of people waiting longer than 18 months for NHS treatment in England is growing, figures show, despite ministers vowing to have eliminated such long waits six months ago.
The government promised to end all waits of a year and a half by April this year. Figures published on Thursday show 8,998 people were waiting more than 18 months for treatment at the end of August, up from 7,289 at the end of July.
Overall NHS waiting lists have hit a record high. NHS England figures show 7.75 million people were waiting at the end of August, up from 7.68 million in July. It is the highest number since records began in August 2007.
“With another 65,000 people added to the waiting list in August and the average waiting times for patients still growing, we are not seeing the turnaround in fortunes that the government and patients would hope to see,” said Thea Stein, the chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, a health thinktank. “This lack of progress is alarming as we head into winter.”
Ministers said strikes by doctors were having a significant effect on the ability of the NHS to bring down waits. NHS England’s medical director, Prof Sir Stephen Powis, also sought to blame industrial action, which he said was “continuing to pile pressure on services and impact capacity”.
Powis and Steve Barclay, the health secretary, pointed to the rollout of virtual wards, where patients can receive treatment at home for conditions such as heart failure, as key in the efforts to reduce pressure on hospitals.
“These ‘hospitals at home’ will speed up recovery times for patients and help cut waiting lists,” Barclay said in a statement on Thursday.
Health organisations said the figures underlined the scale of the challenge facing the NHS over the coming months, as hospitals gear up for the most challenging period of the year.
“The data paints a grim picture of what lies ahead,” said Sara Gorton, the head of health at Unison, the UK’s largest union. “Staff have been working in exceptionally challenging circumstances, with many suffering burnout. And all this is happening well ahead of winter and its extra pressures.”
Siva Anandaciva, the chief analyst at the King’s Fund health charity, said: “Today’s statistics show the NHS is running red hot as it enters the busy winter period. Despite the prime minister’s commitment to cut waiting lists, more and more people are now queueing for routine hospital care.”
Pressure on A&E units and mental health care services and cancer care also showed that “there are few areas of patient care that are unscathed by workforce shortages and rising demand”, he added.
The data also showed the number of patients waiting longer than 62 days since an urgent GP referral for suspected cancer was 23,809 in the week ending 3 September, up from 21,016 in the week to 6 August.
Among cancer patients who had their first treatment in August after an urgent GP referral, 62.8% waited less than two months, up slightly from 62.6% in July. The target is 85%.
